XBOX 360 STILL M.I.A.

Chrissie bonanza
ahead? Sony notches
up 34,000 PSP sales
in just 14 days

SYDNEY - Sony Computer Entertainment Austtralia has almost met an ambitious
target of selling 40,000 PlayStation Portable handheld games machines within
two weeks of the devices' local release, with sales monitoring agency GfK
Marketing confirming yesterday that some 34,172 units were sold in the 14
days to September 11, 2005.

Some 20,000 units were pre-ordered before the Australian launch on September
1. According to SCE's Adrian Christie, "a few" customers did not pick up
their pre-ordered units, but the launch had nevertheless been more
successful than any other gaming device launch in recent years.

The 34,172 confirmed sales represent retail-level revenue of more than $13.3
million, within sight of the forecast $16 million. They cast some doubt,
however on SCE Australia's forecast of 250,000 sales worth $100 million by
Christmas, aided by a $5 million promotional blitz (CDN Aug. 11).

Sony badly wants the PSP to outsell Apple's iPod in Australia this
Christmas, after the iPod stole No 1 retail spot from Sony last year.

One rival the PSP won't have to face at Christmas is Microsoft's new Xbox
360 console. Microsoft yesterday confirmed that it would not be launched in
Australia until 2006, despite announcing a November 22 date for the UK
release and December 2 for Europe.

The PSP will still face new competition at the lower end before Christmas,
with Nintendo launching its $179 dual-screen DS handheld on September 22,
and the $150 Game Boy Micro on November 3.

Undeterred, Sony is looking to 330-380,000 PSP unit sales in Australia by
the end of March. The company claims the PSP is much more than a games
machine, since it can also play music, show photos and full-length Hollywood
movies.

The PSP weighs 280 grams, has a 4.3-inch wide-screen high-res display,
built-in stereo speakers and 32 megs of main memory.

Should be a great little stocking stuffer.

---

Google launches blog finder

SAN FRANCISCO - Google has launched a new search service for Web blogs,
competing with blog search startups Technorati and Feedster Technorati.

With its blog search tool, Google is building an index of blogs that it will
track more frequently than traditional searches. Most bloggers maintain
their journals through blog publishing services like Blogger, which Google
acquired in early 2003.

These services can automatically send out a "ping" to notify search services
when a blog has been updated. That mechanism allows Google to update its
blog search with new content faster than standard Web searches, Google says
on its Web site. The blog search service is available at
http://google.com/blogsearch.